Septinsular Republic: Map & History

Background: French rule and Russian conquest of the Ionian Islands

The Ionian Islands (Corfu, Paxoi, Zakynthos or Zante, Kefalonia, Lefkada, Ithaca, and Kythira or Cerigo) along with a handful of exclaves on the Epirote mainland, namely the coastal towns of Parga, Preveza, Vonitsa, and Butrinto, had been Venetian possessions for centuries, thereby becoming the only part of the Greek world to escape conquest by the Ottoman Empire, developing a distinct local culture, and becoming a place of "dynamic interaction between the West and [...] the Greek East", indeed serving as "Greek culture's window on the West", through which Western European ideas and culture were transmitted to the Greek world.